Film 34/52: Hannibal (2001)


I was such a huge fan of Jonathan Demme's Silence of the Lambs, and of Jodie Foster's Oscar-winning performance as Clarice Starling, that when Hannibal was announced with Julianne Moore assuming the role, I frankly just wasn't interested. And so for the past 21 years, I hadn't yet sat down to watch Ridley Scott's adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel.

Well, that situation has been rectified, thanks to our 52 Pick-Up series. While I still prefer Silence as a story as well as a film, Hannibal definitely exceeded my expectations. The biggest and most impressive surprise — Greg Cannom's make-up for Gary Oldman's Mason Verger. But beyond that, the film has an impressive cast including Giancarlo Giannini and Ray Liotta. I have to admit, I quickly came to accept Julianne Moore as Clarice. And let's face it, Hopkins is Lecter — no slight to Mads Mikkelsen intended.

I've often found Ridley Scott's films to be beautiful to look at (a saving grace of the otherwise extremely disappointing Prometheus), and yet several times while watching Hannibal, I thought that definitely was not the case. There's a lot of blurred, shaky-cam sped-up and slowed-down footage that I didn't think was particularly well executed. It seemed to come at times when what was being depicted onscreen might have been deemed too disturbing for a mainstream audience, but given that we're graced with the captivating visage of Verger from the very opening of the film, I think I was prepared for just about anything from that point on. And as good as that practical make-up effect is, another visceral sequence late in the film is far less effective, as rendered via CGI. 

I know the film veers from the novel in a number of ways, particularly in where the two leads end up, but seeing the film has inspired me to give the novel a chance as well. Hannibal may not be on par with Silence of the Lambs or Michael Mann's Manhunter, but I found it to be far more entertaining than Dino de Laurentiis' Red Dragon (remade solely to create a version with Hopkins as Lecter). The few shaky-cam shots aside, the production values made this one worthy of screening on the big screen. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers/Return of the Musketeers (1973/1974/1989)

Image
In a coincidental tribute to Raquel Welch following her passing a few weeks back, over the course of a few nights we watched  The Three Musketeers ,  The  Four Musketeers , and Return of the Musketeers  in The Slaughtered Lamb.  The first two films were shot as a single feature, and subsequently split and released a year apart (much to the chagrin of cast and crew members who were paid for a single film!), with the third film reuniting the cast and director fifteen years later. Produced by the Salkind's (who would go on to produce the original Superman films a few years later), and directed by Richard Lester (who was responsible for the classic Beatles films A Hard Day's Night and Help! ), I will admit that I went in with pretty high expectations. In retrospect, coming from the Salkinds I think I was looking for the tale of the Three Musketeers by way of Richard Donner (director of the original Superman and far too many great films to list here), rather than Richard Lester (
Read more

Film 49/52: Warlords of Atlantis (1978)

Image
Growing up, Doug McClure was a staple of weekday afternoon television thanks to three Amicus Studios fantasy films he starred in based on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs ( The Land That Time Forgot , The People That Time Forgot , and my favorite,  At the Earth's Core , in which he starred opposite Peter Cushing and Caroline Munro). I was surprised years later to discover that he did a fourth fantasy film (not for Amicus, and from an original screenplay), Warlords of Atlantis . I've had a copy in the library for years, but after showing Vonna the trailer (which showcases several of the films interesting creatures), we selected this one for our 'W' film. McClure is the creator of a diving bell helping a scientist and his son interested in finding the lost city of Atlantis. On their first dive, they're attacked by a sea creature, and after a narrow escape they find a golden statue — an artifact of Atlantis. The ship is attacked by a giant octopus, and several of the
Read more

Film 7/52: The Green Slime (1968)

Image
We've been singing The Green Slime theme song around The Slaughtered Lamb since first considering this as our 'G' entry in the 52 Pick-Up (if you've got an Amazon Echo, ask Alexa to play "The Green Slime"). That may have been one of the reasons why Vonna ultimately decided she could sit this one out, so I was left to face the green slime all on my own. I had a vague awareness that the film was a Japanese co-production, but I wasn't aware that it featured no Japanese actors in the cast! It does have the hallmarks of my favorite Japanese sci-fi films of the era, including cool (if not convincingly filmed) miniature ships and sets, and rubber men-in-suit monsters. Years later, director Kinji Fukasaku would go on to direct the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series (which I have yet to see), and his final film was the very influential adaptation of the novel  Battle Royale . The Green Slime setup is this — an asteroid (Flora) is on a collision course wi
Read more